As Old As You Feel

This 'n That

One hour. As Old As You Feel

Sunday was another lazy day. Brad went home Saturday afternoon. Jack is in the hospital so we visited him. Don't think it is anything serious. No one came over, so we sat by the pool, reading and taking the occasional dip. Had Bobbies Frozen Custard for dinner.

Took the dog back to the vet today because her limp is getting worse. She is now on cortisone. I am at the vet so often that they should have a coffee cup with my name on it.

Compiling my book list has been a stroll down memory lane. I have gone through some definite phases. In high school and early college I read everything I could get my hands on by Steinbeck. I got into Phillip Roth, beginning of course with Portnoy's Complaint. College was existentialist angst, Sartre, Camus etc., but I don't have many of those books left and don't remember too much about them. A couple of years ago I re-red Myth of Sisyphus and still thought it was relevant. For a number of years I was obsessed with Vietnam. Although Slaughterhouse Five is still one of my all time favorites I never got that far into Vonnegut. Who can forget The Hitch Hiker's, four book, trilogy or the I Claudius books. Shortly after my divorce I got discovered Dubus. Pat Conroy has always touched a nerve with me and makes me wonder if there is something sinister in my life.

Enough politics

Sue was at a national sales conference for most of the weekend, so it was me, Kris and the dog. I spent a good deal of the time trying to put together a presentation about Pea Ridge. I think I have a handle:

"When I began reading about the events leading up to the battle of Pea Ridge, I began to picture a dance. It was almost as if two armies were waltzing back and forth across Missouri. As I got further into it I realized that there were really three dances.

The first was between the State of Missouri and the governments of the United States of America and the Confederate States of America. A better analogy of these relationships might be that of a troubled marriage. The government imposed on Missouri by the Federal forces was like an abusive husband who drives his bride into the hands of a lover. The State was punished at every turn with Draconian laws and was not protected marauding bands of Jayhawkers. The Confederacy treated Missouri like it was an unfaithful bride. In the end she felt ignored and abandoned.

The second dance was that of the generals. On the part of the Confederacy Sterling Price and Ben McCulloch were supposed to be fighting on the same side, but their loathing of each other often got in the way. Their dance went on for much of the war. On the Union side there was no great love between Samuel R. Curtis and Franz Sigel but they did manage to cooperate better than Price and McCulloch.

Finally was the dance of two armies, who waltzed up and down Missouri. They tangoed at Pea Ridge Arkansas."